Sunday 13 December 2009

Editor In Exile

Out Febuary 2010: The Hampstonian will feature a rather nice image of Rosslyn Hill in 1790.

Hello Darlings,
So sorry I haven't blooged for a bit. What with completing the new 100 page info-guide for Hampstead, namely, The Hampstonian [out Feb 2010] your beloved Musti's been a bit on the busy side. Worse still, those blighters at Scamden have taken out an ASBO against me and exiled me to a small island off the coast of France from whence I write.

There's this dodgy little french geezer here who orders everyone around. Think he's a Scamden spy. He acts like he's some sort of emperor, so he must work for the enemy. Worse still, it's 1812 and they haven't invented Wi-Fi yet so internet access is a bit hard to come by - thus the scarcity of my blogs and delay in getting the next Hampstead Village Voice [edition 10] together.

Fortunately, the present one [edition 009] - which features an 8 page special on George Orwell and how we're all living his 1984 nightmare - is so popular, people just keep buying it over and over again. Splendid! Might just reprint it to save the hassle of all that editing and writing.

Hang on a minute... "not now Josephine, can't you see I'm busy!"

Sorry about that. My bird Josephine was up for a bit of slap and tickle but you, the people of Hampstonia are - of course -much more important!

Okay, got to go. Josephine just won't wait any longer. I can hear her graoning in ecstatic anticipation in the next tent. "Coming dear!"

Toodle-Pip!

Mustafa Golsdstein
Editor in Exile. 


Wednesday 23 September 2009

SCAMDEN RE-DEFINES LOVE AS THE NEW HAMPSTEAD VILLAGE VOICE HITS SHOPS FROM OCTOBER 1st 2009!


What a waste of money! £100,000  that ought to have been spent on something useful, like disbanding Scamden and reviving  the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead or some such similar, more managable and locally accountable authority who won't make running a local business impossible and know how to keep our High Street quiet, uncluttered and tidy.

It ain't easy being the editor of your local rag, I can tell you. Especially when you take on yet another magazine called The Hampstonian - an info guide and directory for Hampstead which will be out next year. Not only that, I've gone and fallen in love - a most marvelous but very time consuming excercise when you're the Editor, Publisher, Writer, Designer, PR geezer, Delivery Boy, Sales executive and Tea Person of not one but two magazines! 

How I fit in five-a-side footy and lounging around outside coffee bars I'll never know. But I do know that I love her and the next edition of the Hampstead Village Voice is a right cracker! 

Without getting all smug, I'm particularly pleased with the 9-page special on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four which turns sixty this year. And what with the BBC inviting the likes of Nick "Adolf-Himmler" Griffin onto Question Time to use the old - "we'll give you back your country cos it's all the fault of the non-whites" spiel, it couldn't be better timed. 

The BBC seem to have been reading the Britischen Nazional Partie's favourite local paper the Himm & Heil Express (AKA Ham & High) lately, because to invite one of Hitler's disciples onto a national television debate in the midst of a recession hit Britain that is clearly overpopulated (No - that's not a racist or nationalist comment - but you can bet that little Brown Shirted w*nker will turn it into one), is to put it mildly a little on the risky side. Still, it won't half be entertaining - especially as I don't give a shit about sodding Airstrip One (formerly Britain) anymore and will be f*****g off to a cave in Afghanistan as soon as I can get a decent price for the Hampstead Village Voice!

Enjoy the new Hampstead Village Voice which'll be out on October 1st 1984... Er 2009.

Toodle Pip and Down With Big Brother!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein
Enemigo Del Hermano Grande



Thursday 16 July 2009

Edition 008 is in the shops!

Everybody's buggered off and we don't care! Yes, Hampstead is definitely at it's best when the schools break up and all those snotty nosed little brats (just like me when I was a lad), bugger off on their hols and take their ghastly Four By Four, Hampstead Tractor mums with them.

Ahhh, there's nothing like a bit of peace and quiet and, were it not for those infernal police and ambulance sirens blasting their ear-piercing screeching noises at us all day, Hampstead would almost be as good as it was back in it's 1975 hey day.

I've taken it upon myself to release a new info-guide for Hampstead called The Hampstonian which will be out in the new year. It'll be free and, unlike that seedy little mag, the Hampstead Village Voice, will be utterly un-controversial and stuffed full of adverts. 

You see, however much every one loves the HAVIVO - apart from that weird Daily Mail reading woman who hangs around the William IV and doesn't get it - The Hampstead Village Idiot doesn't earn a big enough crust to actually allow it's editor to live in Hampstead. That is it only makes about £2m a year, hardly enough to keep me, its editor, in espresso's - I have worked out that averaging 30 coffee's a day I need to gross at least £21,900 per annum just to pay off Caffé Nero. Add to that my Hampstead rent of £2m p/a and my Scamden Council Tax of £20m p/a and I'm decidedly down on the deal.

Thus the release of The Hampstonian which is going to be non satirical but afford me the opportunity of eloping to Brazil with a beautiful Brasiliana and living the serene life on a beach that I so richly deserve! Let's face it, the pension situation in old Blighty looks pretty shitty and Hampstead is deteriorating into nothing but a sub-soviet of Scamden. So who in their right minds would want to retire here?

Toodle Pip!

Musfarta OldSplean
Mustafa Goldstein
Ed. 




Tuesday 16 June 2009

Edition Numero Otto's On It's Way!


Tony Soprano makes a brief appearance in edition 008 of the Hampstead Village Voice which will be out in July 2009.

It ain't easy being a Don. It's 1.10am and I'm clocking off having put the final touches to pages 1-12 of edition 008. Tomorrow it's pages 13-36, then off to be proofed by The Midfield General and Dianne The Brief. All being well, this monster of a Summer issue will be in the shops by the 1st of July so pick one up and take it on your hols because it has to better than the EasyJet (SleazyJet) magazine. Although, truth be known, I rather like the SleasyJet magazine. In fact compared to the Ryanair (LyingAir) magazine it's a positive joy. Whilst I'm at it, I haven't flown LyingAir for over two years and you can rest assured I will never fly with them again. Why? Because they're shit, that's why. I have a list as long as the Great Wall of China of reasons I will never fly with them again but take my word for it - if you're going for a cheap flight, pay the extra fiver and go with SleazyJet because they treat you more like the family pet rather than a sheep to the slaughter which is LyingAir's default setting. 

Toodle Pip!

Don Mustafa
xxx

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Culture Club fans swamp Head Office

Jon and TV presenter Jameela Dyzantae back stage at the Hampstead Village Voice Awards (Hammies) at Burgh House, Hampstead.

Jon Does his Captain Black impression on a Culture Club import.

Since publishing Edition 007 of the Hampstead Village Voice I've also had to act as part-time secretary of the Jon Moss fan club, sending out copies of the Hampstead Village Voice interview on page 11 entitled "Eine kleine rock'n'roll espresso with JON MOSS" to Greece, Canada, America and various parts of Airstrip One (the country formerly known as Britain). In fact so much interest has the world shown in young Mr. Moss's interview that in order to save time I've posted the whole thing (minus some of the pictures) on this blog in the hope that it may allow me to continue with Edition 008 of the Hampstead Village Voice. 


Jon appearing in Joseph & His Technicoloured Dreamcoat? 

The following interview appeared in the Hampstead Village Voice, Numero 007, Spring Clean edition 2009.

Eine kleine rock'n'roll espresso with... 

JON MOSS

So Jonny m’old mucka, where did you go to school?

What big school? Grown up school?

 No little school.

My very first school was called Mrs McCathry’s in St. John’s Wood.

 St. John’s Wood. Isn’t that abroad?

Yeah, they used to make us go up the stairs and bow. And at the end of the day we had to bow backwards down the stairs. The headmistress would sit at the very top of the house and that fat old bitch would beat us with some piece of wood. How times have changed.

 Do you think that sort of abuse affected your grown up life?

Yeah, I didn’t grow up. But then I went to Arnold House which was alright. I did alot of sport there. I did a lot of boxing there - in fact, believe it or not I was going to become a professional boxer. Then when I was thirteen I discovered smoking, birds and masturbating so I decided boxing wasn’t such a good idea.

 Can I put that in?

Yeah, why not?

 What? smoking, birds and masturbation...

In that order!

 When did you come to Hampstead?

I was born in Wandsworth and came to Hampstead when was six months old because I was adopted. I was born in Clapham Jewish Boys Home. It’s no longer there.

 Did they accept ‘Goys’ there?

Probably, yeah. Anyway, I was very lucky cos I was adopted and came to live in Hampstead in 1957. My parents bought a house in Greenaway Gardens , one of Hampstead’s poshest streets for £8,000 which was very, very cheap even then. We were the poorest rich people in the street. So I grew up in Hampstead and went to Highgate School.

Did they beat you with a stick there as well?

No. I was lucky because the day I started there was my thirteenth birthday and they’d just abolished fagging but we still had to wear a cap and a three piece suit which was really weird. All you had to do to be a rebel at Highgate School was to wear black socks instead of grey socks. But what I used to do was turn up in a Prince of Wales chequered suit and when they went mad about it I told them my other my parents couldn’t afford to buy two suits. Of course it was lost on them how I could afford a Prince of Wales suit. But it was actually quite a cheap polyester affair that I’d saved up for and unfortunately it caught fire at some Sloanies party. Around 1970 I got into wearing two-tone suits. I used to wear a Ben Sherman shirt, a wine-red sleaveless pullover and red braces - I didn’t go for Doc Martins, that was bone-head stuff. I had a Crombie though.

 A sort of Mod look?

It was called Sued-Head at the time. I had this cheap Crombie with a velvet collar and we used to wear a handkerchief in the breast pocket with three points showing and a diamond stud in it. It was all in the detail. We wore Stay-press trousers which had to be about three inches too short so you could see the white socks: my parents thought something miraculous had happened to me because I was actually wearing a suit, then they noticed the shortened trousers and white socks and they realised I looked like something out of the circus. The shoes were Salacio’s - in a sort of basket weave style with metal tips on them which was really stupid because you’d fall arse over tit all the time.

When did you get into drumming?

My brother played drums. He was in a band at school. So when my brother was out I used to sneak in and play drums when I was about thirteen. And my parents were really good because they’d let me practice at the top of the house.  They never actually said as much but I think it was their way of getting back at the neighbours. I’d asked the Sgt. Major at Highgate School for drumming lessons.

 Sgt. Major?

Yeah, it was a public school and we had a Sgt. Major. It was only twenty five years after the second world war and it was still all quite militaristic.

I always think of 1970 as being very hippy a la Withnail & I. But of course the establishment and public schools in particular were still very stiff -bit like that fantastic Lindsay Anderson film If.

Yeah. You either had to join the army, join the airforce or do public service every Tuesday afternoon. So I went for public service.

They should do that with hoodies now, shouldn’t they!

I had to go and see this old lady at a nursing home around the corner from the school and she died, which was convenient because I just took Tuesday afternoons off to go and shag my girlfriend.

What she was still dead, lying there whilst you ere shagging your girlfriend?

No, stupid, I just didn’t tell the school that she’d died in the nursing home.

Are you sure you didn’t leave her there, rotting away in a nursing home cupboard?

No, obviously she’d pegged out, bless her. She was lovely actually. Got all her rings off her and everything - (laughs) Not really.


So that’s why your so wealthy today?

No, shut up.

So what was your first band and were you in Hampstead at the time?

I’ve always been in Hampstead - albeit at that time I was in West Hampstead: a right shit-hole in Burrard Rd. The rent was pennies: no heating, no hot water, pay the electric in a meter with 10p coins. You know the sort of place.

Yeah - you’re my landlord, remember!

Very funny.

So, ahem, Rigsby, you’re in West Hampstead and gigging as a drummer, right?

Ahem...Well actually I started off as a tape op[erator] at the Marquee Studios and did all sorts of other bits and bobs and ended up hanging out with all the musicians like Led Zep.

Then you played with The Clash, right?

Yeah, it was when their first single, White Riot came out and they’d just made it. At first I thought Punk was awful but one day the penny dropped and I thought this is great so all the hair came off and I got beaten up that night outside Maxwell’s. So I got this black eye and my parent’s returned from holiday to find this completely different person - it wasn’t long hair and flairs anymore and my father hit me because he said I’d turned into a Nazi.

So anyway, I go down to the Stables in Camden Town and Joe Strummer was garbling out of the side of his mouth saying things like you’re not a punk and I said, “you’re The Clash aren’t you” and he said, “how do you know?” and I said, ”it’s written on the back of your bleedin’ jacket”. And it was weird because I had to go and have my hair cut properly - or not properly - so ironically it was a bit like public school, really. There was a lot of bullying and pier pressure and they really went out of their way to make you feel like the new boy. For example, I remember Mick Jones expected me to carry his bloody guitar in for him so I left it in the street and just drove off.

I also refused to wear a swastika which a lot of Punks used to do. The Clash weren’t really like that.

But Punks weren’t Nazis, where they?

No, they were just into shocking everyone. So they wore swastikas. It was shock they were into. That’s why when I got into punk my dad thought I’d turned into a Nazi. But of course I’m not and I never wore a swastika.

So, in the end I fell out with Joe Strummer and phoned him up and said, “Sorry mate, I’m not into this”.

And he said, what do you mean? Nobody leaves The Clash,” and I said, “Well, I’ve just done it mate!” And he said “You had better put your nose to the grind-stone Mossy-boy”. He was all ‘front’, Joe. He was alright really. Anyway that was that.

So then I formed this band called London. We nearly got a song on an advert for Golden Wonder crisps. Didn’t happen in the end but I really learned my trade. We went on tour with The Adverts and The Stranglers and it was right in the middle of Punk, but that’s when all the skin-head shit happened. I got suff chucked at me at every gig. I got stabbed. But I was lucky because living in Hampstead I used to go to The Nags Head (Ed. Sadly now Knight Frank, A.k.a. Shite W*nk, the esate agent) and they were all bikers.

Yeah, the front bar of the Flask used to have a lot of bikers too. I remember Lol and his legendary crow-bar.

I didn’t used to go to the Flask. It was always the Holly Bush or The Nags Head in those days. And I went to The Black Lion in West Hampstead sometimes. Not sure why I went there: think it was because they had a Durex machine.

So luckily all these biker guys used to come along to the gigs and there always used to be an almighty fight between them and the skins.

So they were almost like your Hampstead biker minders. It’s a shame about The Nag’s Head: I can’t see the Knight Frank possé giving you much protection today.

Yeah, but it just went on and on. There’s no way I could do that today. I got ussed to it then but it was pretty nasty stuff. I’m not like that really I don’t really have it in me. I’m not a fighter.

(Puts on effeminate Michael Jackson voice) You mean, “I’m a lover not a fighter, Paul...”

Very funny. Yeah, you know what I mean. But then again it toughened you up a bit and made you aware of the reality of things...

Yeah, that whole era was about getting chased by skins. I remember getting the shit kicked out of me in Hampstead High Street outside the Bird In Hand (ED. Now Café Scrooge) when I was thirteen by six skin-heads for no reason whatsoever in broad daylight. And everyone just walked past and did nothing. They think the hoodie youth of today are a problem - their f**king panzies compared to the skins from the Winch or the Abbey Road estate in those days.

Yeah, it was a very violent time (Ed. circa. 1978-82). I remember ten years after Culture Club finished going back and doing small gigs again and thinking “oh, shit, here we go again”, but it had all changed and there wasn’t any trouble anymore - and I thought “phew, what a relief!”.

So after London, I joined The Damned. Their drummer, Rat Scabies had gone bonkers.

Not surprising with a name like Rat Scabies.

Yeah he did actually go mad for a while, so we went on tour all over the place and that’s when I met all the Hell’s Angels through my brother who was a biker and they were quite good. They were actually quite handy. I remember I went back to the club house. The thing with the Hell’s Angels, like any ‘gang’ is there’s always a bloke called Mo, Spanner and Spider. And a bloke called ‘Tiny’ who’s the biggest bloke.

Spider’s always very skinny or has a hair-lip and Spanner’s the one who see’s colours.

So the Damned sort of fell apart and then I had a car crash as I was driving down Frognal from the Admirals House end. It was New Years Eve and I was on my way to meet with The Ramones. I was going to join The Ramones and they were playing at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park. It was at that bit near the top of Frognal that has no pavement. This bloke in a pink Jaguar XJS flashed me to go on and then he accelerated.

That was nice of him.

So I went through the windscreen and ended up at the Royal Free. I was quite badly bashed up.

(Pedantic Ed. Note to drivers: according to Highway Code, the flashing of lights means simply “I am here”, not, “you go first”. It also states that the driver going up hill has right of way. So, drivers, bare that in mind or you might end up down the Royal Free).

So to recouperate I went up to this guy Lou’s in place in Norfolk. He was completely mad and dug this basement. He actually dug it himself - it sounds mad now - it was probably really dangerous. Anyway, he built this studio in it and Captain Sensible of The Damned came up and we wrote this album. We did some really good recordings. The Captain didn’t stay but we became The Edge. After that eventually went tits-up I was doing a gig for a band called Gloria Mundy at UCL in Gower Street and got beaten up by about thirty skin-heads.

There were hundreds of these really hard-core skins there and as I was packing away my drum kit this bone-head got on stage and started going ‘zieg-heil, zieg-heil’. I had this new drum kit that I’d just saved up for and had nearly finished packing it away: I’d just literally only the base drum to go and this skin-head turned round and went “fucking yid”. They new there was a jew in the band - they always used to go ‘fucking jew drummer this and that”. So I ended up being beaten up by thirty people... the only good thing about being battered by thirty skins is that when there’s that many of them they can’t all get to you properly and end up kicking the back of some blokes calves or whatever. They were all so out of it they end up beating themselves up. I just went into a small ball and rode the storm. I didn’t actually come off too badly because I was wearing leather trousers and a leather jacket. There was one bloke - I think he was gay - he was trying to help me. He had me by the hair and I ended up with a big clump of hair missing. But at least he tried to help. They were just about to throw me off this really high stage to the hundred or so skins in the audience and I thought, ‘this is it. I’m going to die’, then the police came in the nick of time. Then this policeman picks me up, put’s me in a Half-Nelson and starts banging my head up against the f**king wall.

So I got away with a couple of bruised ribs, a broken nose and a couple of black eyes. I was lucky. They were all off their faces on cheap speed and alcohol and didn’t know what they were doing.

So how did Culture Club come about?

It’s quite weird. I’d split up with this girlfriend. She was called Jane Eyre who was signed to Stiff Records and the Edge become her backing band. Then Virgin wanted to sign us but said “without the drummer!” I thought, ‘hang on a minute’ and it turned out it was because Richard Branson wanted to get into her pants, so I was given the elbow. It was about 1980 and everythings fallen apart.

I ended up working here, just next to La Gaffe - there used to be a video copying place. I had about four jobs at the same time. I’d stick all the videos in and then I had two hours; I’d take the van they’d given me and go and do some jobs for some other people; come back, take the videos out and then go and do another job with the other van. That’s what Culture Club was started on - all that money. I was on about £400 a week, which in 1980 was a lot of money.

So anyway, just prior to that I went completely bonkers: I’d come back from this little tour and everyone had gone weird. They were all going (breaks into laid back accent) “Hi Jon, so what are you doing?” It turned out everyone had gone on this Exegesis thing and it was the sort of must-do find yourself experience thing at the time.

(Ed. Apparently the goal of biblical exegesis is to find the meaning of the text which then leads to discovering its significance or relevance- What? Learn how to read? Oh dear. I’m glad I missed out on that little spiritual-fad).

I thought if I went on this course thing, I’d some how win the woman back or whatever. So, anyway, I had about £250 quid in my pocket and thought, sod it - I’ll go along. There were about a hundred and fifty people there and this bloke got me up on stage and said “So what are you here for Jon?” And I said, “I want to be a successful musician”. It suddenly occured to me why I was there - I wasn’t there for that bloody woman at all. (Ed. Halleluyah! Jonny saw the light!) Obviously the whole thing was a load of b*ll*cks - you know - but funnily enough, six months later we started Culture Club and I thought “Blimey, it worked!”.

How very splendid! So how did Culture Club come about?

Oh yeah...Adam and the Ants! I went down for an audition with Adam and the Ants and made a couple of records with them. I couldn’t stand him. We were in Wales and there were about twenty people and the table and everyone said...we have to wait for Adam. He hated smoking. (Ed. Sounds like a dinner party with the Führer!) So I put the drum tracks down and got out of there. The next thing I know they made it really big.

So you left the Clash just before they became really big; you left Adam and the Ants just before they got really big - Did you start to think you were doomed to failure?

No, because I didn’t want to be in a band where I would just be the person they would tell what to do.

You wearn’t Ringo.

No Ringo’s different. Don’t be insulting to Ringo - How dare you! (Ed. Yeah, how very dare you, you infidel heathen! Ringo rocks!)

This is all rather fascinating but how did Culture Club come about?

Oh yeah, I got acall from this guy Terry Razor who said, (Jon breaks into thick Glaswegian accent) “there’s this boke called George who’s got a band, d’ya wanna come and try out for’t?”.

So I went along and I walked in and there was George and he had Mikey at the time and some other guy - poor guy - whom I sacked the next day. As soon as I met George I knew: I just knew. He had ‘it’. There were a couple of minor hurdles not least of which were the band was called In Praise Of Lemmings. Then he wanted to call it Sex Gang Children. So I said, George, do you want to be successful? Because if you do, maybe you should change the name. But we actually sold it for a tenner to some punk band.

So then he came up with Caravan Club and then I came up with Culture Club but he wanted to call himself Papa George, which is horrible isn’t it, so I called him Boy George and took him to Belmondo Hats in Golders Green -which isn’t there anymore - and bought him a Streimal and of course he had the dread-locks which were very trendy at the time.

So this poor bloke called ‘Suede’. He was a nice bloke. I was completely rude to hime and although I’d only been in the band a day I just told him “you’ve got to go”. And then we met Roy from Essex. It was quite good because George was from South London, I was from North London, Mikey was from West London and Roy was from East London. We were all completely different - so it was a good name. We really were a Culture Club. We could have called ourself The News, couldn’t we? North, East, West, South. That’s where the word news comes from, you know that don’t you?

I think the Arkala of the 15th Hampstead cubs mentioned it once - I don’t think you’d have been quite so successful with that name, do you? That’s done it! Now there’ll be some massive band called The News and they’ll all point back to this interview and we’ll be ridiculed forever!

Yeah and we’d have to (cont on page 42)

Sunday 5 April 2009

EDITOR FLEES TO GALILEE


One of these bearded "gentlemen" is Mustafa Goldstein's Auntie Doris from Wuppertal who's going to take him to a damned good stoning.

Cor Blimey and Jehova be praised I've bloody well had enough of Hampstead, so I'm off. Bleedin' sick of the place if you really want to know. Well... So would Jehova be if he published the Hampstead Village Voice and every time Jehova walked up the High Street some infidel chucked in their blooming t'penny's worth. 

Of course I love Hampstead - I love my mother too, doesn't mean I want to live with her day in and day out, does it! Even Jehova knows that! So I'm out of here and off for a spot of stoning in Galilee - Apparently it's a local boy this week and all I can say is he's got it good compared to what I've had to put up with from you lot! 

Enjoy wallowing in heaps of bin-liners and spilt umska whilst I'm gone. Some of you actively seem to like it - No surprise the word Hamp-stead derives from Pig-Farm. 

Snort Snort and up Jehova!

Toodle Pip!

Mustafa Goldsteinxxx
Un-popular Peoples Front of Hampstonia.

Wednesday 25 March 2009

IT'S IN THE SHOPS!


This is the already unlegendary poster promoting the Spring 2009 issue of Humpsturd's least favourite magazine... 

Hoorah! The Spring Clean edition of the Hampstead Village Voice is out NOW!

Got up early (ish), had a coffee at Cafe Sneéro, then met he known only as "The Elf" for lunch at La Gaffe and it was off to the printers in Brimsdowne in Herbie-The-Hampstead-Village-Voice-Mobile A.K.A. the Elf's Volvo estate. 

He wasn't a happy little Elf by the time we got to his favourite barber shop - where we usually stop off so that he can get his hair cut for £8. Well, Hampstead's so pricey these days- and Elf's aren't paid all that well. Anyway - it was Thursday and lo and behold they still have half day bloody closing up there in Middlesex! I thought half-day closing went out of fashion with Maynard's and Fowler's in Flask Walk! But obviously not in Brimsdowne. 

So with Danny Baker blaring through the Elf's Volvo's stereo we manage to deliver some 1,300 copies of the Hampstead Village Voice to newsagents and bookshops  in Hampstead, Saff End Green, Belsize Park and West Hampstead before retiring to the Rosslyn Arms for a pizza and a beverage. I drank a lime and soda and he drank several bottles of Becks with ice and a few Café Creme cigars: well, he ain't very Elfy, is he.

Chop-chop! off you go and purchase your Hampstead Village Voice immediately! The local economy depends on it!

Mustafa Goldstein
xxx
A.K.A.. Richard Nixon Jnr..

Monday 23 March 2009

Confused, editor joins Caribineri


Above: Confused by his Anglo-Arabic-German-Jewish ancestry, Hampstead Village Voice Editor, Emmanuell "Mustafa" Goldstein decides to join the Italian police. Note the illegally dumped black refuse bag (bottom right). Ahhh - just like home!

Captain's Log: stardate 23-03-2009. Someone said it was High-tie-m I got a proper job and as we can see from the picture above,  my new position of Il Guardia Del Firenze a la Caribinieri has been keeping me very busy indeed. Some might say the fact that I now earn €21,000:00 a year for standing in a concrete podium for eight hours a day is a complete waste of tax-payers money. Not a bit! It's money well spent, not least because it will stop me producing that blasted magazine that gets up everybody's noses. Besides, it's Italian tax-payers who'll be coughing up the pasta, so what do you care?

Incidentally, the allegedly scandalous 7th edition of the Hampstead Village Voice features Oscar winning member of Parliament Mademoiselle GLENDA JACKSON (Oooooh!), NICKY HORNE on JOHN LENNON (Blimey!), HENRY KELLY (Corrrr!) JON MOSS (Wehey!), ADNANDUS DYZANTAE (Ahhhh!), THE MIDFIELD GENERAL (Arrrghhh!) and KLAUS VON KUNST (Whoops!) and will be available for the whopping, post-recession price of £2 whole squid from the following outlets as of April 1st 2009.

Toodle Pip and arrivederci,

Mustafa G.
xxx

PS. My new boss, Snr. Il Ducci-Generalissimo Berlusconi assures me it'll be a very good read.

Monday 2 March 2009

Edition 007 Out on April 1st 2009 £2squid!


Charming! Is Hampstead becoming a Khazi? Listen up restaurants, businesses and residents: it's time to start taking responsibility for our rubbish or face the Hampstead Village Voice Gallows of Shame. (This horror-show was recently dumped outside a business in Downshire Hill - what are they on?).

Hurrah! Edition 7 of the Hampstead Village Voice will be at you Hampstead news agents by the 1st of April 2009, is back to it's normal price of £2.00 (well, the recession's over init) and includes a FREE CD with every purchase! Unless of course you live in our Satellite State of Belsize Park in which case you can purchase your copy in Belsize Village or outside the tube station. Residents of the Soviet Republic of West Shamstead will have to walk all the way up West End Lane and buy their copy from Mr. Mystery because, frankly, all the other news agents in West Hampstead were so unenthusiastic and have so little Joie De Vivre that we can't be arsed with them any more. We wonder whether some of these people actually alive? 

Meanwhile, I have been approached by several Hampstonians of late who are convinced the Hampstead Village Voice ought to come out at least monthly and that if it did this would in some way or another equal “progress” of some sort.

What utter poppycock! My dear Hampstonians, nothing could be further from the truth. For starters it would mean getting up very early every morning. How does that equal progress? After all, sleeping in, blissfully stretching and yawning whilst the rest of London crams into a carraige on the Northern Line is surely the most glorious of luxuries which only the foolish would forsake.

Besides, the whole ethic behind this thing is that it’s vehemently anti-rat-race. If the Hampstead Village Voice had a mission statement (which it hasn’t) it would be “Nice and easy does it”. What’s the rush?

Indeed we pride ourselves that no Roman calenders or alarm clocks are required in the production of the Hampstead Village Voice. It grows and evolves as naturally as an oak tree on Hampstead Heath and rusheth not to the foolish tempo of Governments, banks and corporations.

The Beatles had the right idea when they wrote the song  I'm only sleeping (Revolver) which is right on the button :
 
"Everybody seems to think I'm lazy, I don't mind, I think they're crazy.
Running everywhere at such a speed - till they find, there's no need..."

Splendido!

Toodle pip!

Musti Goldsteinxxx
PS. Keep Hampstead Tidy!
PPS. Litter Highate at will!



Saturday 14 February 2009

Bribery and Corruption

One law for Scamden another law for us...

It might appear to the casual observer that Scamden, to whom we pay vast quantities of council and parking taxes, are immune to their own rules. Obstructing public highways and leaving large articles of litter (ie. Those Orange Barrier Things) all over the place seems to be par for the course these days.

Were I to leave Bessy the Hampstead Village Voice bicycle in the middle of a zebra crossing, I could expect confiscation and a hefty fine at the very least. Yet Scamden's sub-contractors love nothing more than to flout the laws of the land on a regular basis. See above how a Scamden street cleaner  leaves his blasted trolly in the middle of the Zebra. He often leaves it outside the Coffee Cup too, in a position where one can bang one's knee on his blasted broom handle that he leaves protruding in an awkward position. 

Above The Law

Group 4 Security too keep driving onto the pavement and over the zebra crossing in order to deliver to Nat West (A.K.A. Twat-Pest) every Wednesday morning. 

Scamden sub-contractors, Crowley love leaving hundreds of orange barrier things everywhere: if it were anyone else's shit it would be regarded as litter- but huge plastic orange things don't seem to qualify as litter as Scamden seem happy to allow Crowley to blot the landscape by not cleaning up after themselves. Those Orange things are everywhere.

Blahhh Blahhh Blahhh. I'm losing enthusiasm for all this... Anyone want to buy the magazine? Not sure if I can be arsed with all this much longer.

Mustafa G
Disillusioned of Hampstead

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Russell makes Hampstead Village Voice debut then mysteriously disappears

Last seen in the Hampstead Community Centre at Bruce & Carol's bookstall and on pages 3, 15, 25 and 26 of the current edition of Hampstead Village Voice, Russell Brand poses with a booky wook. 

Haven't seen old Russy Wussy about for a bit - not since bumping into him in that Stressco hell hole, then dashing off to Xabia [Spain] to start work on my book. 

He asked me what the book was about but I wasn't about to spill the beans on the greatest literary idea since Romeo and Juliet or Nineteen-Eighty-Four was I? Not that I don't trust old Russ, it's just not the done thing to tell people what a book's about till it's written, is it. It might scupper the thing and we wouldn't want to be doing that. 

Glengarry Glen Ross

So now it's back to the business of getting edition 7 of the Hampstead Village Voice under way. I actually use the film Glengarry Glen Ross as a training exercise before going out and selling advertising. It's time to "Put that coffee down", get out the "Brass Balls" and "Always Be Closing". Especially with all this economic downturn malarky everyone's on about? "Yeah, I used to be in sales... It's a tough racket..." Bullshit! I'm going to go out tonight and close a five year contract with Oldschidt & Howler, Stressco and Star*ucks - "They're out there just waiting to give you their money... Are you going to take it? Are you man enough to take it?"  Says Alec Baldwin to Jack Lemon et all in what has become the Hampstead Village Voice sales training and motivational DVD. Damned right I am! Charge!

Le Petite Crime 

More importantly, Bessy the Hampstead Village Voice bicycle's had her gorgeous plastic basket nicked off her from out side Barclays Bank in the High St. We believe an employee recently made redundant by the Barclays credit crunch cull may have nicked it in order to clear his desk. Either that or it's the work of some jealous fiend who despises the Hampstead Village Voice and is attempting to sabotage our efforts to bring enlightenment, love and bohemia to the rapidly declining parish. 

Hampstead Village Voice - Le Petite Crime Sheet No.1

Alas there have been several such instances of theft and sabotage in the last year including:

a) The blatant theft of our advertising board outside Hampstead Tube Station
b) The ripping off and chucking into the street of our advertising board outside the Village Newsagents on Heath St.
c) The letting out of air from Bessy the bicycle's rear wheel in Flask Walk.
d) The unsolicited use of our advertising boards by The Evening Standard, The Guardian and The Economist.
e) The theft of Bessy the bicycle's plastic basket.

We do think we allegedly smell an alleged conspiracy from one or all of the alleged following: 

i) The CIA  
ii) Scamden (various departments)  
iii) Stressco  
iv) Little Hoodie Wankers 
v) Pissed off Security van driver  
vii) Der Himm Und Heil Hitler Express
viii) M15
ix) The Evening Stan'rd, The Gruniad, The e-Communist

Of course this is all alleged hypothetical hogwash and it may just be some saddo has nothing better to do with their time than piss on the Hampstead Village Voice parade but let's face it, we are living in the blasted dark ages so what do we expect?

Is it me or is the world truly crap right now?

Tra la la and toodle pip!

Mustafa Goldstein x
Enemigo Del Gran Hermano
(Enemy of Big Brother)

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